Kamikaze Pro ‘Lethal Weapon’ (30/8/14) Review

Added 04/09/2014 by Phillip McCullough

Kamikaze Pro came to the Collingwood Centre in Great Barr for their show Lethal Weapon, this was my first time at the Collingwood centre and it is a great venue for wrestling, the centre was packed, the biggest attendance I have seen at a Kamikaze show, the wooden floor added to the atmosphere as the noise reverberated throughout the room, Looking around there was the usual Kam Pro faithful as well as, what likely is, the regulars to the Collingwood Centre, this is probably the best feature for Kamikaze Pro, they rotate between four venues, bringing in regulars that go to all the shows and the regulars to that area, making their shows very well attended.

The show opened with the news that General Manager Harvey Dale is no longer in his position, making ring announcer, commentator and all round impresario Lawrie to step in as acting GM, the first match on the bill was the Kamikaze Pro unification tag team match between dual champions The Hunter Brothers and The Miracle Violence Connection, in the previous show a member of both teams were pinned at the same time, leading to confusion of who was actually the winner, this lead to this match, The Hunters are the go to guys to start any show off, the crowd love them, they are full of engagement and energy, and the crowd love to cheer them on, both teams were reluctant to allow the belts they held to be let out of their sight at the start and kept one in each corner as they set out to unify the titles. The match was its expected high level with Lee and Jim Hunter taking control of the match, a big shout out to Dan Maloney for being his most menacing in this match, it seemed that he wanted the win more than anyone else, he team well with Tyler Bate as the match went back and forth, the match had everything you would expect from both teams, high spots, power moves and aggression, the finish was also well done as Tyler and Dan hit Lee Hunter with the Doomsday device, Lee managed to land on his feet but was rolled up for the win by Dan Maloney, after the match, Dan seemed reluctant to share the belts with Tyler, this instantly made Dan look even more heel than ever and casts doubts over the teams unity, However it was a brilliant opening Match.

The next match was Nixon Newell taking on Violet Vendetta, Nixon was in action at the previous show in which she took on the badman himself Marshall X, this time round she was strengthening the women’s division in this at times Violent match, I know there are people who dislike women’s wrestling, but this match proved that women are just as good and can take bumps with the best of them, there was a lot of out of ring action and a good display of technical moves in ring, Violet Vendetta picked up the win and almost straight away Marshall X came down to exact his revenge on Nixon for his previous defeat, armed with a Chair he tried to attack Nixon, only for her Vulture Squad team mate Chris Brookes to come down and chase him off.

The first half main event was between former NXT Tag Team Champion Joel Redman and one half of the Magnums Big Dick Riley, and what a match this was, Riley was the first out, accompanied by his tag team partner Filthy Chris Walker, They have a great entrance and my suspicion is they are ment to be Heel, but the crowd love them, with chants of “We want Dick” echoing through the room, next out was Joel Redman, he looked every bit the professional wrestler, tanned, tall and well built, he high fived the crowd as he made his way around the ring, being a child I went for a high five and his had felt like it was made of concrete, both guys put on a great show, for big guys they can move really well, underlined by Dick Rileys’ reverse huricanrana, which sent the crowd wild, at one point Dick Riley hit Joel, who was on the outside with a suicide dive and seemed just to hit a brick wall as Joel’s strength showed out, both men hit power move after power move but failed to put each other away, towards the end of the match Dick ripped of Joel’s knees brace and went to work on it in an attempt to finish Joel off, Joel’s experience showed out as he finished off the match with a knee drop from the top rope, In my opinion one of the best matches I have watched this year.

The second half Started with resident badman Marshall X taking on Chris Brookes, Marshall’s antics earlier lead Chris Brookes to take the mic, instead of berating him, he simply called him a ‘silly bugger’ which started the crowd off, much to Marshall’s displeasure, both men went all out from the start and put on a very entertaining match, Marshall at one point brought in his steal chair into the ring to inflict him nefarious plan, before he could hit Chris with it, Nixon Newell got involved and alerted the ref to Marshalls plan, the Ref in his wisdom took the chair to the back, leaving Marshall to throw talc into the face of Nixon, then after beating Chris down in the corner he threw talc into his face also, then with his plan almost complete and both Nixon and Chris blinded he pushed Chris into Nixons path, who then hit Chris with a Canadian Destroyer, much to the delight of the Black Messiah, whilst Chris was out of action, Marshall grabbed Nixon, put her arm through a steel chair and jumped of the top rope landing on the chair, with Nixon in visible pain, Chris managed to get to his feet to chase of Marshall, a first aider was called, and a selection of the locker room came out to assist Nixon, I’m sure that the Vulture Squad will be looking for revenge at the next show.

The penultimate match saw the Relentless Division Champion and Kamikaze Pro Heavyweight champion Ryan Smile taking on his ‘bestie’ Number 1 Damian Dunne, I was talking before the show to my wrestling companion that I had a feeling this may turn out to be a Triple H v Shawn Micheals European title match for back in 1998, where Shawn lay down for Triple H rather than fight his friend, this seemed to be the plan for Damien and Ryan also, but in true Sargent Slaughter style acting GM Lawrie interjected, and told Damien Dunne that if he did not compete he would never get a title shot again, Ryan offered his best friend a platter of chicken nuggets if he didn’t fight him, but the lure of the title was too much and both guys went at it, both men put a great show on, as usual, but in the end Ryan Smile was victorious and continues his run of double champ, the GM let him know he was facing the Anarchist Doug Williams at the next show, Ryan wasn’t bother at all, and listed all the top guys he has faced and beat, hard to argue with that to be fair.

The Main event of the evening was for the Ring of Honor TV title in which ‘Dynamite’ Pete Dunne and Robbie X took on Jay Lethal in a three way Match, and what a match it was, a really well worked match in which all three men had equal show, there were plenty of kicks to the face and head, and some really good triple move work, it was a high energy match throughout, one of the highlights was where Jay Lethal locked Pete Dunne into his trademark figure four leg lock, then took down Robbie X and put him in a cross face, the pace never slowed down right up until Jay Lethal landed the Elbow from the top on Pete Dunne to retain his ROH title, Jay then addressed the crowd and seemed honest and genuine in his praise and thanks to the Great Barr crowd.

Yet again another fantastic show from Kamikaze Pro, a big shout has to go to all the people who make it happen, the merch people, Bev and Jill on the door, the commentators, referees the wrestlers and not to forget the crowd who were awesome, the next show is at the Cadbury Club in Bournville on September 21st.